By Margaret Swaine
“Our nickname is tees, trees and PhD’s,” says Martin Armes, Director of Communications for Raleigh’s visitors bureau. This moniker pretty much describes the whole of North Carolina’s heartland area, where I’m spending a week, to a tee. We’re driving along tree lined roads to meet with Peggy Kirk Bell who’s America’s first lady of golf, a charter member of the LPGA and multi-championship title holder at her lodge and golf club Pine Needles. Then Armes rattles off the names of universities in the area: Duke, NCC Durham, UNC Chapel Hill, North Carolina State. And the learned scientists of the Research Triangle add to the area’s brainpower. Why should a tourist care about this or that the region was named one of the ten best places to work in the US? Well it gives the place a stately air and a reason to have good restaurants, choice public golf courses and plenty of fine accommodation.
North Carolina has over 400 public golf courses that attract more annual golf visitors than all but two of the 50 states. Two pre-eminent golf course architects Donald Ross whose work graces some 40 courses in the state and Tom Fazio with about 13 have called the state home. In Moore County’s Sandhills region where I’m headed there are more than 40 quality courses, including the traditional Mid Pines and a lot of newer offerings by current hot designers. Known as North Carolina’s home of American golf, it regularly hosts big-time golf events at the likes of Pinehurst where the U.S. Open returns to No. 2 in 2005 and Pine Needles which will see a return of the U.S. Women’s Open in 2007.
The area located between Charlotte and Raleigh in south-central North Carolina, has one of the most legendary and picturesque stretches of highway in the country especially for golfers. Midland Road has been named the “Fifth Avenue of Golf” for its multitude of name golf architects. It ends not far from the second tee of the renowned Pinehurst No. 2, ranked in the top ten courses in the world with its awesomely challenging turtle back greens. Pinehurst is also a beautiful resort that pays homage to southern tradition in its five distinctive lodgings including the historic Carolina, the Four-Diamond Holly and the spacious Villas. When I sat on one of the many rocking chairs of the large wrap around porch of the Hotel Carolina, I felt transported back over 100 years to its beginnings. The new luxury 55,000 square foot spa building is a $12 million modern trapping but oh so gorgeous and welcome as a way to relax. I could have happily lingered for weeks if there wasn’t so much more to explore.
Founded in 1792, Raleigh, which is known as the City of Oaks, has often been called a park with a city in it. You’ll see a copper statue of an acorn in Moore Square Park, one of many grassy, wooded areas. Close by is another landmark, Big Ed’s City Market where the town’s movers and shakers gorge on down home cooking. I met Raleigh’s mayor, Charles Meeker, the morning I feasted on four kinds of pork (including an excellent made on premises spicy sausage), accompanied by grits, fried potato smothered with onion and cheese and fresh scrambled farm eggs. Big Ed’s highly recognizable for his bib overalls, checkered shirt and corny wit. Angus Barn is another Raleigh destination tradition. A huge sprawling place that seats about 500 it lives up to its name, complete with hay and wood beam motifs, but the Angus beef steaks and legendary 1,350 selection wine list keep it packed every night.
In Durham County I play the challenging but beautiful pine tree lined Duke University course designed by Robert Trent Jones, updated by his son Ree’s Jones and about to undergo another fine tuning. Overlooking the course, also on the campus of Duke University, is the Washington Duke Inn, with its gracious large lobby, Bull Durham Bar and fancy Fairview restaurant – far classier than anything I ever knew as a student. This year it’s undergoing a $25 million upgrade to make it a five-diamond facility. The golf course (open to the public all days of the week, includes nine available teaching pros) is adding a short game area. The other happy Durham surprise was Papas Grill set in a non-descript suburban shopping mall. Inside the place was quite spiffy with white linen tablecloths and a handsome bar area. The Papanikas family cooks and serves fresh and flavourful Hellenic and Mediterranean rim cuisine. It’s home style with panache and top ingredients: delicious leaf lettuce and artichoke salad, wild mushrooms with asparagus and melt in your mouth fish.
Winston-Salem nestled in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains is known as the City of the Arts and offers a diversity of museums, art galleries and cultural entertainment. It’s also the birthplace of Krispy Kreme donuts. The local tradition is to stop at an outlet with the Hot Now sign lit up in red and watch the donuts float on boiling oil to the sugar waterfall. Once glazed, they’re fished off the line for immediate eating. I had to do it, but once was enough. I much more enjoyed visiting Old Salem, founded in 1766 to house Moravian craftsmen, the German speaking protestants who immigrated from Europe about 250 years ago. This colonial site has around 100 restored and reconstructed buildings including the Winkler Bakery, circa 1800, famous for Moravian wafer thin cookies, breads and sugarcake still served hot from the wood-fired oven. St. Philips Moravian Church, built in 1861, is the oldest standing African American church in the state. The Toy Museum houses a fascinating collection of toys, dollhouses and miniatures dating from as early as the third century. For shopping, leave this historic district and head to Hanes Mall, an enormous complex of over 200 stores including all the American favourites. The most charming spot to stay in town is the Brookstown Inn, set in an old textile mill and part of the Historic Hotels of America.
I always love to visit wineries wherever I go and North Carolina has a fair share of them. Just 15 minutes west of Winston-Salem is the Yadkin River Valley, home to about nine of the state’s 26 wineries. The area grew wine pre-prohibition, then switched to tobacco and is now returning to the vine. Westbend Vineyards in the early seventies was one of the first in the state to plant French vinifera grape varieties. RayLen Vineyards on the other hand is more recent with a spanking new winery and tasting room. Their winemaker Steve Shepard has decades of experience however and his knowledge of the region shows in the good quality of the wines. Most wineries offers tours and tastings most days – call ahead to make certain of the hours.
Also just west of the city is Tanglewood Park. Part of the land claimed by Sir Walter Raleigh for Queen Elizabeth in 1584, much later it became the property of the Reynolds family of tobacco fame. They willed in it the early fifties to Forsyth County to share as a public park. And what a park. There’s horseback riding, a lovely Manor House that operates as a B & B, hiking trails, clay tennis courts and an exceptionally pretty championship course that Robert Trent Jones has called one of his finest. The greens are well protected by 102 sandtraps.
My last day I spent golfing The Champions Course at Bryan Park in Greensboro, listed in Golf Digest’s Best in State rankings. Much of the course hugs the shores of Lake Townsend. There was plenty of water in play to spook me but the vistas of glittering blue were so stunning I still enjoyed myself despite losing too many balls to the lure of the lake. In contrast an urban forest of parking lots, roads and buildings surrounds the O’Henry Hotel, named for the short story writer who lived in Greensboro. Inside it’s a world of difference with luxurious rooms and lobby areas. Its upscale and boisterous Green Valley Grill has an intelligent, lengthy wine list to match with the tasty rotisserie fare.
So thanks to all those professors, doctors and research scientist who clearly know how to live well, I say. I understand the heartlands area is also home to many diet and fitness centres so there’s even a solution to over indulgence beyond another game of golf.
If you go:
Visitors Bureaus and general tourism info:
State of North Carolina: www.visitnc.com phone: 800-787-0670
Raleigh: www.raleighcvb.org phone: 800-849-8499
Winston-Salem: www.winstonsalem.comphone: 866-728-4200
All these generico levitra on line products need to be taken with or without food. The result is hundreds of thousands now popping viagra sans prescription unica-web.com pills and rubbing on all manner of strange lotions over their bodies, while drinking bottled water and hoarding tinned food. Just make sure generic levitra that the pills are taken with water that are swallowed and become effective within an hour. The toxins of acute cialis 20mg no prescription Infective Diseases such as diphtheria, shingles, typhoid fever, malaria, scarlet fever, septicemia. Greensboro:www.greensboronc.orgphone: 800-344-2282
Durham: www.durham-nc.com phone: 800-446-8604
Pinehurst, Southern Pines, Aberdeen: www.homeofgolf.com phone: 800-346-5362
Burlington Alamance County: www.burlington-area-nc.org phone: 800-637-3804
Chapel Hill Orange County:www.chocvb.org phone: 888-968-2060
Wineries: www.ncwine.org phone: 919-733-7136
Hotels/resorts
Washington Duke Inn and Golf Club: www.washingtondukeinn.com phone: 800-443-3853
Pinehurst: www.pinehurst.com phone: 800-its-golf
Pine Needles and Mid Pines: www.pineneedles-midpines.com phone: 800-747-7272
O’Henry Hotel: www.o.henryhotel.com phone: 336-854-2000
Brookstown inn: www.historichotels.org phone: 800-845-4262
Restaurants
Papas Grill (Durham): www.papasgrill.citysearch.com 919-383-8502
Big Ed’s: www.visitraleigh.com phone: 919-836-9909
Angus Barn: www.angusbarn.com phone: 919-787-3505
Green Valley Grill: www.o.henryhotel.com phone: 336-854-2015
Golf Courses
Mid Pines Inn and Golf Club (Donald Ross in 1921): www.pineneedles-midpines.com 800-323-2114
Duke University Golf Club (Robert Trent Jones in 1957 and Rees Jones in 1993) www.golf.duke.edu/ 919-681-2288
Tanglewood Park Championship Course (Robert Trent Jones in 1958) www.tanglewoodpark.org 336-778-6320
Bryan Park Champions Course (Rees Jones in 1990) www.bryanpark.com 336-375-2200